Wasn’t that whatsettling downmeant? You meet a nice, quiet girl and fall in love. I wasn’t nice. I wasn’t quiet. I was too much and not enough all at once—too opinionated, too loud, too tall, too unwilling to fold myself into smaller, lighter shapes for anyone’s comfort.
Khalifa must have been able to feel it too, the empty space where my heart should’ve been, the statue of a woman standing in place of a girl whocouldlove andbeloved. So why, then, would he want me to know him? Why would he risk exposing himself to something that couldn’t respond, couldn’t soften, couldn’t meet him halfway? I ached with it, this cruel understanding, that even if I wanted to, even if I craved it, even if I dared to hope...I wasn’t the kind of girl who could.
And that made this loneliness worse,sharper. It wasn’t just being unseen, it was beingimpossibleto see, impenetrable, a vessel no one could fill, a person no one could touch. And somehow, knowing it, feeling it, made everything more unbearable.
There was a sudden, faint pressure on the other side of the door. A shift. Alean. Khalifa, hesitant and still, sat gently against the wood. I didn’t move. My tears fell freely, and for a long moment, there was only the sound of my own ragged breathing.
I placed my hand flat to the door, almost as if I could reach him through it. Not for comfort, or closeness—though a part of me longed for it no matter how much I hated to admit it—but to acknowledge him, to acknowledge that someone was there, someone was willing to stay, even if it was only in silence. And yet, even that hit me in a brutal, bittersweet way, because it reminded me that I was still untouchable, still unreachable, still a girl carved from stone.
I stayed like that all night, letting his soothing presence press into me from both sides, letting the tears spill, letting the yearning spread through me. Alone, but not entirely. Invisible, but not completely. And even if I couldn’t say what I wanted, even if I couldn’t let myself hope, it wasenough, just barely, to feel the faintest tremor of something I hadn’t ever let myself feel.
Chapter Thirteen
I WOKE SLOWLY, THEmorning rushing into my shoulders before my body even remembered where I was. The floor was cold beneath me, my back still pressed against the door, the faint impression of wood etched into my spine. The room was calm, still, except for the soft hum of early light filtering through the blinds.
Khalifa was already gone, leaving the house in order, leaving me to the creeping awakening of my own tangled thoughts. And yet, like always, the coffee was ready, the warm aroma curling through the kitchen before my feet even hit the floor. My breakfast was waiting, carefully covered on the island, and my lunch for work sat neatly in the fridge. Sticky notes with his familiar handwriting were scattered in reminders and bossy nudges across the counters.
I lingered at the threshold, staring at the perfection he’d left behind, my chest tightening with guilt. The words I threw at him the night before, the raw frustration I’d let spill, felt shameful in the daylight. How childish and unfair it had been to allow five seconds with my mother to twist me inside out, to make me turn on him, when he’d done nothing but hold up his end of the agreement we’d made.
What right did I have to demand more? To suddenly insist on a connection that he never promised? He hadn’t hurt me; he hadn’t betrayed me. He had simply existed in the way he always had, giving only what he could, and I had reacted as though he owed me the world.
I spent a few hours at work tucked into my office, clearing my desk, canceling all my appointments for the day. I needed space—space to think, space to breathe, space to uncoil the knot of regret and frustration from last night. By mid-afternoon, the work was done, the rhythm of typing and filing giving me a kind of serene solace.
Once I’d shut my laptop, I slipped out and made my way to his favorite vegan spot. I ordered the option I assumed he’d like—extra tofu, spring rolls on the side—and drove to the university, trying not to think too hard about why I was doing it. Part of me wanted to punish myself for how badly I had lost control. Part of me wanted to see the place where he moved through the world, so orderly, so unshakable, while I still felt like a storm barely contained. And part of me—quiet, insistent, almost pleading—wanted to apologize. To tell him I hadn’t meant it, that my anger had nothing to do with him, that all I wanted was to go back to the way we were before, to the unspoken understanding we’d had, the balance I had so recklessly disrupted.
I checked the campus map, found the building, and headed to the classroom. When I pushed the door open, I froze. The room was full, students filling every seat, some even standing along the walls.
I turned to one of them, hoping for a clue. “Excuse me, is there a class right now?”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing up from his notes. “Dr. Nasser has hisThe World in the Twentieth Centurylecture.”
I blinked, momentarily taken aback. I hadn’t expected to actuallyseehim in his element like this, and yet here he was, somewhere I had no business intruding. On impulse, I decided to stay, sliding into one of the last empty seats near the middle of the auditorium, far enough to hopefully remain unnoticed, but close enough to watch.
As I settled, I looked around, still surprised at how full the lecture hall was. There was no way all these students were history majors. And then, slowly, my eyes adjusted. The majority of them weren’t just students—they weregirls. Giggling, spluttering, blushing girls whispering to each other, their notes scented faintly with perfume, their lips and lashes made up with meticulous attention.
I leaned toward the girl beside me. “Hey, are you a history major?”
“God, no,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Just taking it as an elective.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t people usually take easy classes for electives? This one seems...intense.”
She laughed, a light, melodic sound that echoed in the hall. “The prof is worth it.”
“The prof?” I asked, unsure if I’d heard her correctly.
“Yeah,” she said, tossing her hair back with a little shrug. “Haven’t you seen him? He’ssohot.”
I was just attempting to process how someone could be dense enough to take an entire course because they thought the professor wasso hot, when my eyes found him standing at the podium, calm, composed, commanding the room with a presence that made it impossible to look away. The students weren’t here for the syllabus—they were here forhim. And suddenly, I was acutely aware of the gulf between us: my careful distance, my hardened rims, and his effortless pull, the way the room bent just a little toward him.
For the first time since laying eyes on him, I let myself actuallylook. Not just the way you looked at someone because you lived with them, or because they were standing across the kitchen counter, or because they were next to you at dinner, defusing a fight you started. I looked the way these girls were looking.
And I saw it—the thing I’d dismissed before. The sharpness of his jaw, the kind of symmetry that didn’t scream for attention but summoned it anyway. The way his liquid caramel eyes caught the light, focused and shimmering, the curls at the nape of his neck that hadn’t quite obeyed him. When we’d first met, I’d immediately decided he wasn’t my type. His features didn’t fit into the tidy little checklist of attraction I’d curated for myself, the one filled with excessive height and flashy aesthetics that announced themselves like a marching band.
But now, watching him, I understood. He wasn’t conventionally handsome in the way my mind had always imagined—but he wasstriking. And maybe that was worse. Because once you noticed him, your brain refused to notice anything else.
I sank a little lower in my seat, heat creeping into my cheeks. Around me, a hundred girls were already aware of it—his beauty, his quiet magnetism—and I was only just beginning to see it, and only because I had been trying so hard not to.
I told myself I’d leave before the lecture ended. That I’d slip out inconspicuously, maybe leave the takeout on his desk like some invisible apology I no longer had the courage to voice. But I didn’t move.
